


Pas de Deux

by prototyping



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Action, Blood and Violence, Dimitri Week 2019, Extended Scene, Fighting, Gen, fight fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21832423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototyping/pseuds/prototyping
Summary: She leads this dance and he follows, just as they did as children－but now they move to the rhythm of shrieking steel and harsh panting and their pulses thundering in their ears.[An expansion of their battle dialogue at Gronder (Azure Moon route). Done for the prompt “Dancing” for Dimitri Week 2019.]
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	Pas de Deux

She greets him with her back straight and head held high as he knew she would. Her eyes are cool and calculating, evaluating, giving no hint of her thoughts as she watches him approach. She looks older but in truth she hasn’t changed at all. This is the Edelgard he’s always known with the same face she’s always worn. He was just too stupid to realize it was a mask.

By the time Dimitri is done with her, she won’t have the strength to hide anything. She’ll scream and weep and curse him and it will be music to his ears.

He stops just short of the stone platform on which she stands－her self-righteous pedestal, no doubt, that allows her to look down upon the battlefield as she does everything and everyone else. Even then she doesn’t move, although he reads tension in her arms as they bear her weapon and shield at the ready.

Were her likeness carved in marble, it couldn’t be more statuesque than the real thing: sharp, cold, still, and radiating the arrogance of power.

She’s as beautiful as she is terrible and he hates her all the more for the duplicity.

He’ll _make_ her as ugly outwardly as she is on the inside, he decides. He’ll crush her skull between his hands and grind those sharp features to a bloody pulp before tearing it off her small shoulders. He’ll strip her soft flesh from her bones with her own dagger, which has hung untouched on his belt for half a decade awaiting such a fitting purpose. He’ll throw it all to vultures and then put what’s left to the torch.

He’ll keep what remains of her head for himself, of course. It will be mounted before the gates of Enbarr. Shattered, grotesque, hardly recognizable, it will be a warning to his enemies and an offering to the dead, with the blade of his lance as the altar.

“Stab your chest, break your neck, smash your head…” The words fall from his mouth at a clipped rhythm, a chant, nearly singsong with the eager bloodlust sending goosebumps over every inch of his skin.

_Almost._

_She will die soon._

_Almost._

Just as quickly, the hint of twisted excitement disappears and he growls, “I will allow you to choose your own death.”

Even now, he isn’t completely without mercy.

“I’m not interested in methods of dying.” Edelgard’s expression actually softens, her tone cool and wistful. Dimitri wants to punch the look through the back of her head. “All that matters is when death takes place, not how.” She shifts her weight with an easy grace and levels her axe at his chest. Her eyes harden and that mocking gentleness is gone as quickly as it came. “And I have no intention,” the Emperor of Adrestia declares, “of dying today.”

Likewise, Dimitri drops all pretense of reason.

“I’m sure all of the people you’ve slaughtered so far thought the _same!_ ”

They meet like clashing storms, speed and force surging upon one another without hesitation. Edelgard knows better than to face his strength head-on and instead sidesteps the thrust of his lance, smashing her shield into his arm to help the blow fly past her. Her axe blade whistles towards his throat. The back end of his lance snaps upward, the shaft connecting with her arm hard enough to make her grunt and knock her aim askew. Dimitri twists away with a slash at her chest but her shield rises to deflect it.

Compared to the countless imperial grunts he’s slaughtered, she’s a challenge, and Dimitri can’t decide whether he appreciates needing to earn this victory or despises having to wait even a moment longer to kill her. She moves on the balls of her feet, minding every action and wasting none. She is calm speed to his raging brute force; she looks for opportunities while he makes them. She uses the terrain to her advantage, luring his strikes into the stone pillars and darting in at those vulnerable split-seconds.

She plays her little games and he pursues, just as they’ve done for the past five years.

She leads this dance and he follows, just as they did as children－but now they move to the rhythm of shrieking steel and harsh panting and their pulses thundering in their ears.

She whirls to avoid his jab and he remembers the little girl raising their joined hands over their heads, showing him how to spin her into a proper turn.

With two quick steps left she dodges again, and with one to the right she swings _(“One-two-step, Dimitri! It’s always one-two!”)_ and he catches her forearm against his own to prevent her axe from burying into his shoulder.

Her shield hand clutches his mantle as she bends backwards－avoiding the sweeping blow he makes for her neck, trusting her balance to him as she once did when teaching him to dip her weight without dropping her.

The irony isn’t lost on him, but it doesn’t matter.

She swiftly withdraws and he swings but she plants her boot against his lance shaft to kick it off-course. She absorbs the force that should have sent her sprawling by pirouetting on the opposite leg, an elegant spin that brings her around to his outside and slams her axehead into his right hip.

Dimitri’s armor prevents the worst of it, but pain blossoms over his side like a bursting flame. He drinks it up eagerly, further motivation to rip the life from her battered body at last, and backhands her hard across the face in clumsy, angry retaliation.

He’s standing over her before she hits the ground. Both of his hands grasp his lance and drive it down towards her chest to skewer her black heart with all the strength he can muster－but Edelgard, surprisingly still conscious, doesn’t wait. She rolls sideways as soon as she touches down, blindly throwing up her shield in defense, but it can’t take a direct hit against this much force: his lance goes straight through it, and the groan of steel bending can’t hide her startled gasp as his blade slices hard into her left side.

To his delight she starts to curl in on herself, the active flush in her face paling beneath the pain. He wrenches his lance out of her shield, out of the ground, out of _her_ , and stabs again－but with surprising speed and determination she rolls onto her good side, narrowly dodging it. Unfettered, Dimitri tears his blade free again－except Edelgard’s fist is closed tight around the shaft and he drags her to her feet in the process.

Her shield slams into his gut with all of her weight behind it. He’s forced back a step and she’s already bringing her axe down, but it’s too predictable: his hand snaps out and closes around hers, crushing her fingers against the handle and stopping her mid-swing. He yanks her forward and she stumbles into him, close enough for him to smell her sweat and blood and see his shadow reflected in her eyes.

He slings his lance arm across her back and traps her there against his chest－and for an instant the pain and the noise and the battlefield and the last twelve years are no more and her hands are much smaller, her face rounder, her hair darker, and Dimitri’s only concern is making sure he doesn’t step on her feet or bruise her fingers. Just for that instant.

And then he squeezes.

He’s not sure which is sweeter: her low shout as the air is forced from her lungs, or the hum of her ribs grinding, bending, threatening to crack beneath his tightening grip. Her hand trembles and jerks beneath his, desperate to fight back, but stone would sooner give.

He’ll snap her spine in two. Maybe he’ll keep going after that, squeezing until her organs burst and her bones are dust－or maybe he’ll throw her broken body to the ground and carve her heart from her chest to feel its final beats in his fingers－

White hot pain suddenly flares up his right side. Dimitri staggers with a grunt, but it quickly grows worse and the arm around Edelgard spasms. His torso contorts as the pain digs deeper and he snarls, shifting his grip on her to set the blade of his lance against her throat, but in that second between movements, she acts: with a hard twist of her head, she drags one of the pointed horns of her headpiece across his face.

It tears across his chin, the corner of his mouth, and partway up his cheek before he jerks backwards. He releases her, slicing his lance across her back in the same motion, and they part with mutual gasps as their bloods spill anew.

The fire in his side finally lets up. He notices her bloodstained fingers and realizes she must have shoved them into his open wound－a ferocity he can respect, even if he hungers to break every bone in her offending hand.

“Just as expected,” Edelgard pants, her voice as bent with strain as her posture, “you aren’t making my path an easy one.” The left side of her face is already bruising from the blow of his knuckles. It’s mildly satisfying, as are the splatters of blood staining her uniform, but it’s not enough. Nothing will _ever_ be enough as long as she still breathes.

Before he can spit out a retort, Dimitri hears the rumble of hooves. He moves aside just in time and a horse barrels past, the mounted soldier catching Edelgard’s arm and hoisting her up into the saddle in front of him. She immediately takes the reins and pulls the horse around to meet Dimitri’s gaze.

“I must retreat for now. We’ll meet again on the battlefield.”

Rage boils inside him, as hot as the fresh blood running down his chin and thigh. “Like _hell_ you will!” Ignoring the strain it puts on his wounds, he pulls Areadbhar back over his shoulder and hurls it at her.

“Your Majesty－!” The soldier pushes her down against the horse’s neck and throws himself over her. The blade slices through his infantry armor as easily as paper.

The man goes limp and Dimitri grits his teeth, watching as Edelgard’s shock swiftly melts into something that, on anyone else, might pass for sadness. Then her eyes find his, as hard as ice once more. Without a word she eases the soldier’s body from the saddle and drops it to the ground.

“Until next time, Dimitri.” She turns and flees.

As the space between them grows, so do the angry, disappointed screams in Dimitri’s head.


End file.
